Reviews by verityvirtue

I loved the blurb. Spy hands! Spy keys! It pretty much encapsulates what the game is about.

This Twine-style game is a silly, entertaining romp through the tropes of noir fiction and espionage stories. While it superficially channeled John le Carré, it grew tiresome after a while, precisely because the 'parody' aspect was laid on too thick. Any semblance of humanity in the NPCs or, indeed, in the PC, was quickly quashed by the lack of a sensible storyline. A lesson, perhaps, to us that genre-breaking and lampshading are nice to have, but without a good story, they are merely gimmicks.

Maybe this is just my inner curmudgeonly old man speaking, but while this short game is good for a quick laugh, it is, in the end, rather unmemorable.

You're on a dinner date with Caroline. She's mysterious, and just before you leave her for the night, she tells you to meet her at Hydra Park the next day.

Caroline has the looks of a Twine game but uses a streamlined parser. Despite this, though, the range of actions available to the PC was extremely limited - meaning instead of clicking links as in Twine, one has to type out the keywords… word for word.

The minimal presentation of the text, while pretty, made the game feel claustrophobic. Perhaps it was meant to heighten the uneasy atmosphere of later chapters. Perhaps it was to highlight the impact of the words, the terse questions. If it was, then this worked for me.

The lack of choices in what would ordinarily be extremely open-ended situations (sitting in a room with a stranger, for example) felt contrived sometimes. This made it hard for me to suspend disbelief, though this was at least somewhat addressed in the final chapter.

I had a little beef with this curious fact: in Caroline, no one has much of a background story and everyone is generic! The PC is just… a man. Caroline… is a woman. This all added to the claustrophobic feel of the game. In the end, Caroline scores neither on the quality of story, nor on use of game mechanics.

Magical Makeover is a self-styled parody of over-the-top Flash games 'for girls', namely those whose interactivity consists wholly of choosing outfits. It starts with floridly named makeup products and a rhyming, snarky mirror but delves into a touch of body horror, and into riffs off fairy tales.

This game is generous, in various senses of the word. The writer revels in description, evoking sparkly, colourful images. While the passages got lengthy at times, this was made up for by the wit: the game lampshades tropes from fairy tales and adventure stories. ‘Lampshades’ doesn’t even begin to describe it - much of the game felt more like an exuberant riff.

The level of story branching was certainly generous as well. As the author says, there are seven possible endings, but I was impressed by how distinct and well-developed each of them were, with their own backstories.

I really liked the blurb. It sounds snarky. It sounds like it could be a satire. It sounds like it could be fun. The game itself, though, was none of these, sorry to say. It was hard to understand- if there was something deeper than what I saw, then I missed it entirely.

The intake form of which the blurb speaks doesn't even give you a chance to make sense of things. It doesn't start off normal - it's garbled through and through, and finishing it takes you to a room. Rooms, as it turns out - the content of which changes with your earlier choices in the form. What happens in them... (Spoiler - click to show)also doesn't make much sense. Playing it, I got the persistent feeling that I was missing something somewhere. Should I be understanding this? Is there some textual hint? Read the first letters of each word or something? Apparently not. This made the game vaguely unsatisfying, like an itch your arms are too short to scratch. In short, interesting premise, I guess, but either badly executed or just not for me.

(Removed reference to Twine bugs.)

Playing this, I had the impression that this game could do with some beta-testing, as it is not yet a polished product. It does have, at its heart, a logical story, which would make a lot more sense with greater characterisation. Contrary to the author’s fears, it isn’t actually repetitive, so that’s a point in the author’s favour.

I had the general impression of going through too many actions which did not advance the story. I get that the author made an intentional effort to create suspense, but if the author wanted to make the twist (that is, (Spoiler - click to show)when Mr Kennington fires the player) more shocking or devastating, then it would make sense to show us what kind of emotional stake the player character (PC) has in the job.

(This is where characterisation comes in- something like an explanation of how the PC got this job, or whatever the author sees fit.) Allowing more interaction with the old man would also help in characterisation.

The game’s general appearance is not particularly encouraging, as there are frequent spelling mistakes and lapses in grammar. This gives the impression of hasty writing.

The puzzles in the story were a bit trivial- in fact, if there were no puzzles but instead thoughtful interaction with the old man, or something to show the PC’s emotional stake in his job/clockmaking in general, that would be completely fine.

As a side note, it would be good if there was an option to switch audio off, too.

To the author: take heart! Please don’t let this dishearten you, and do continue writing- it’s not too hard to find people to test your game (http://game-testing.org or http://intfiction.org/forum). They can often spot things which an author would never think of, like bugs, spelling errors, plot holes and such.

Having discovered the resident assistant in your dorm dead- murdered, clearly!- you immediately take on the role of amateur detective!

For a whodunit, though, there was not much in the way of finding things out, more of just finding things. The PC’s motives were also not very clearly explained, which was sorely needed to justify the story and suspend disbelief. (Spoiler - click to show)Other things also jarred: for example, the PC’s apparent lack of emotion- as well as the reactions of most named NPCs- seemed to me suspicious and would have been a rather juicy twist, but, to my dismay, it meant nothing.

There are multiple endings, so some thought went into the branching of the story, but I still found the events a tad puzzling, even with the revelation at the end. It’s not a bad beginning; I hope the author continues to write games and hone her writing skills!

In this visually compelling work, you are a psychic detective called to the side of a body. A familiar body. What happened to it?

The strongest point of this game has to be the brilliant use of the visual interface that Twine offers. (Spoiler - click to show)I thought the cutscenes right up near the beginning, as well as the moment when you open your eyes in the body, were great. It suits the style of his economical writing and added to the atmosphere of the game. A pity it was so short, though; the story appears to be rich in unspoken backstory.

The AI system informs you that you are in a shelter after a nuclear war destroyed most of the earth. You have lost your memory (as usual); there’s not much place else to go, so there’s just one thing to do: converse.

This short game has just one major twist which can only be reached by asking one specific question, which, as far as I could tell, was unconnected to anything the NPC had said or which was in the scene. However, this is not to say that I didn't enjoy the game, especially the melancholy ending.

The author used the graphics effectively to build up the atmosphere: the tiny pause in responding to a certain question and only being able to observe a small part of the room you are in gives the game an edge of dread. Some further explanation of events mentioned or background information would have been useful to add depth to the PC, but otherwise, really, it's a good game.

Smoke and divots and scorching and stinky brimstone – there’s only one thing this could mean.

There has been demons in your garden.

So begins this tale of a God-fearing parish worker whose dog has disappeared. Armed with a motley crew of, uh, vegetables and one puppy, he ventures deep into the depths of Hell. He has to battle various trials and tribulations to get his dog back.

While the premise of the game is rather linear, the puzzles are all fairly straightforward and stand alone. In case you don’t get it, location-based walkthroughs are also available. Some of the puzzles require a small amount of lateral thinking and most will make you smile and go, “Oh, right!”. Although it is possible to die in the middle of the game, abundant contextual hints are provided and it is always possible to undo the mistake. Special mention should go to the endgame, which I thought was (fridge?) brilliance: it was quite a "Why didn't I think of that?!" moment (for me, at least).

There is also some characterisation near the endgame, which provides some background to an otherwise colourless PC and pathos to an otherwise light game. Suitable for those who are just looking for a fun diversion, or who are bad with puzzles.

I was confused at first: "Load configuration file?" Well, okay, once I figured out how to start a game, it seemed like a database of little factoids, seemingly unrelated to each other. Then there were the personal notes, which made the unseen narrator an NPC in its own right. Endling tugs on your heartstrings because the triviality of some of the 'files' contrasts starkly with the gravity of the disaster the narrator alludes to.

Even though there is no story in the traditional sense of the word, even though it basically is a bunch of factoids, it is elegantly written, carefully constructed and moved me to tears.